I wear my grandmother's ring for medicine.
Rubbing my fingers over it,
I feel my connection to her,
and to the long line of old, wise women
who came before her,
who walked the grandmother path
before she
who walked here
before me.
One of them was a healer;
one of them spoke with ghosts.
In my past are Celtic crones
and warrior women,
mystics and dream weavers.
In my past, women galloped
on horseback across the plains,
gave birth in tents, in covered wagons
and in captivity.
A medicine woman is back there,
and an Untouchable,
a witch and a nun.
In my past are bent, exhausted
and determined women,
digging in the unyielding earth
trying to feed their children
during the potato famine.
Once in vision,
row upon row of silent,
dead-eyed women
wrapped in blankets,
I saw, weaving their way
through the frozen blackness
of a winter morning in the Gulag
and, with a chill, I knew them,
and knew I had been there.
Somewhere back there
there was a woman of vision
and a fool.
Somewhere back there,
wise women sat around a fire
in Council,
speaking truth and governing.
Somewhere back there,
women were burned at the stake.
Some raised swords
and led armies on horseback.
Some were shackled together
in a ship's hold, to be sold as slaves.
Some lived in castles
and some in caves.
Somewhere back there,
once women's spirits flew;
somewhere back there
our souls were kept in bondage.
Somewhere back there
our feet were cruelly bound.
Somewhere back there
we threw off all the bindings
and stood tall.
And now I am watching
my grandmother's face
emerging before me daily
in the mirror.
My grandmother's eyes
are looking out of my face.
They know me.
Somewhere from within
my grandmother has told me
to put on the ring, for now I am worthy.
I, the baby grandmother,
just coming into my power.
No longer a granddaughter,
now an elfin granddaughter
walks beside me, looking up,
and the vast peaceful knowing
that lived in my grandmother's heart
has come to reside within me.
I wear my grandmother's ring
for love, for memory, for connection
to the line of strong women
who came here before me
and for the line of strong women
who will walk here behind me,
for the passage of time that is timeless,
for the circle of love that is endless,
for the circle of life
that keeps turning and turning:
one grandmother out,
one granddaughter in,
footsteps walking in footsteps,
heart upon heart,
all the way Home.
Dusted off and posted for Susan's Mid Week Motif prompt: Heritage Day, since I doubt I could write another that said it better. I am thinking of Maya Angelou's quote: I come as one, but stand for ten thousand. In my family, our matriarchal line is full of very strong women. My grandma, born in the late 1800's, who lived to be a few weeks short of one hundred, was the first woman to ride horseback for pleasure in her area. She caught the eye of the young handsome bank manager and the rest is (my/our family's) history. She had limited education but was self-taught, a voracious reader, and she campaigned to help W.A.C.Bennett get elected, in Kelowna, back in the day. She was sharp as a tack till her very last years. A character, and my lifelong inspiration.
